What they did find was Mrs. Tretheroe in a state of high excitement. She was convinced that her guest, unable to sleep, had gone out for one of his midnight strolls, and had fallen into some old pit or disused quarry. Her own men-servants, several villagers, and the local policeman had been searching for him since breakfast-time, with no result. She scouted the idea that he had taken it into his head to go away, and it was with scorn and indignation that she gave Blick his private and business addresses in London. Blick cared nothing for either indignation or scorn; he went off to the village telegraph office and wired for news; he also sent private messages of his own to headquarters in London in furtherance of his object—one way or another, he meant to have news of von Eckhardstein. “After all,” he said to the Chief Constable, as they lunched together at the Sceptre, “there’s no getting away from the fact that, according to our information, von Eckhardstein was the last person who saw Guy Markenmore alive!” “No!” answered the Chief Constable. “You’re wrong, Blick. The last person who saw Guy Markenmore alive was the man who murdered him.” Blick regarded this as a verbal quibble and changed the subject. Late in the afternoon he got replies to his various telegrams. Nothing had been seen or heard of von Eckhardstein at his usual London haunts. Nor, when night fell again, had any news of him come to hand in Markenmore. CHAPTER XVI FAMILY MATTERS Early in the morning of that day, Mr. Fransemmery, in common with the rest of the Markenmore people, heard of the strange disappearance of Baron von Eckhardstein, and like many of them, he joined in a search for the missing man. Since his coming to The Warren, Mr. Fransemmery had become minutely acquainted with his immediate surroundings, and he knew of many nooks and corners of the woods and downs wherein a stranger might easily have met with an accident. There were queer places in that neighbourhood; two thousand years ago, the folk who were here before the Romans had quarried the hill-sides, scooped out caves and pit-dwellings, and made long lines of fortifications and trenches. These primeval works, grown over in course of time, were danger-traps for the unwary who wandered through the backwoods or crossed the rough, unfrequented parts of the uplands; more than once, in Mr. Fransemmery’s short experience of Markenmore, he had known of man or horse falling into some unexpected cavity. Some such accident as this he conceived to have been possible in the present instance, and when he heard of von Eckhardstein’s disappearance, he took his stoutest walking-stick, some lunch in his pocket, and a small flask of brandy and water, and set out to prospect. In the course of the day he met many folk who were similarly engaged. Mrs. Tretheroe was so much concerned about the fate of her guest, and so convinced that evil had befallen him, that she had pressed into service every